Revision as of 03:27, 20 May 2013

In a Pokémon’s Pokédex information, the species (Japanese: 分類classification) is a name which identifies the Pokémon based on one of its defining biological characteristics. Most often, the defining traits are part of the Pokémon’s physiology, special abilities, or behavior.

This term should not be confused with a Pokémon species, since several different Pokémon can be identified by the same species in the Pokédex, no matter how distantly related. This term should also not be confused with the real world definition of species, since it has nothing to do with which Pokémon are able to breed and produce fertile offspring; in fact, breeding among Pokémon can easily occur between species since it is controlled by Egg Groups.

Under the most commonly accepted real-world scientific definition, there are in fact about fourteen true species of Pokémon, defined by the various Egg Groups, with the Pokémon that exist in more than one Egg Group resembling ring species. Some Pokémon (primarily legendary Pokémon) cannot breed at all, suggesting that they are each a species of their own.

Because of how brief and uninformative the description of a Pokémon often is in its species, and how little the species relates to other data, it is not often regarded as an important piece of information about a Pokémon.

Like many names in the Pokémon games, a species name has a character limit, and will always be thirteen characters or less in length, including spaces but not including “Pokémon”.

Trivia

Several Pokémon have had their species altered between generations. This is primarily due to character limitations in earlier Pokémon games. Squirtle, as an example, was originally the "Tinyturtle Pokémon". It was later listed as the "Tiny Turtle Pokémon".

The species names present in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are cut off in early English releases of the games, most specifically those species names made up of more than one word with a space in between. This causes Pokémon like Pidgey to be listed as "Tiny Pokémon" rather than "Tiny Bird Pokémon". Internal game data lists the species name the same as it appears in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald and other games, indicating a glitch in the Pokédex where a blank space is confused for the terminating byte for the name. This was addressed in later releases of the game.